Saturday, 17 October 2009

Bringing albino-killers to justice

From Maclean's Magazine, Toronto, CanadaBy Katie Engelhart

In the past two years, 53 albinos have been killed in Tanzania. No one has been brought to justice for committing these murders. Until now.

Last Wednesday, a Tanzanian court sentenced three men to death for killing a 14-year-old albino boy, Matatizo Dunia from Shinyanga, in brutal fashion - they kidnapped him, then cut his body into pieces. An equally barbaric case is also garnering national attention: Mariam Emmanuel, a ﬁve-year-old girl, was butchered by a group of machete-wielding men in Mwanza.

The culprits divided the girl’s body up among themselves and drank her blood while her siblings watched. Murdered albinos are usually sold at high prices to witch doctors, who grind up the body parts and brew them into potions that they believe carry magic powers.